HALLOWEEN MONTH calls for scary nights, either reading by the fireside or watching creepy scary movies. Add a little “boo” to your reading with these three stories featuring another worldly influence, sixth sense, apparitions, ghosts and haunted houses.
Embers on the Wind by Lisa Williamson Rosenberg (Little A Publishing)
The past and the present converge in this enthralling, serpentine tale of women connected by motherhood, slavery’s legacy and histories that span centuries. In 1850 in Massachusetts, Whittaker House stood as a stop on the Underground Railroad. It’s where two freedom seekers, Little Annie and Clementine, hid and perished. Whittaker House still stands, and Little Annie and Clementine still linger, their dreams of freedom unfulfilled.
Now a fashionably distressed vacation rental in the Berkshires, Whittaker House draws seekers of another kind: Black women who only appear to be free. Among them are Dominique, a single mother following her grandmère’s stories to Whittaker House in search of an ancestor; Michelle, Dominique’s lover, who has journeyed to the Berkshire Mountains to heal her own traumas; and Kaye, Michelle’s sister, a seer whose visions reveal the past and future secrets of the former safehouse — along with her own.
For each, true liberation can come only from uncovering their connection to history — and to the spirits awaiting peace and redemption within the walls of Whittaker House.
Divine Vintage by Sandra L. Young (Wild Rose Press)
Tess Burton has risked her inheritance to open the Divine Vintage clothing boutique. While modeling an elegant gown from an Edwardian trousseau, her mind is opened to a century-old crime of passion. Her empathic visions — seen through the eyes of the murdered bride — dispute local lore claiming the bridegroom committed the crime.
Trey Dunmore doesn’t share her enthusiasm for mind-blowing visions. Yet the appeal to clear his family’s tainted legacy compels him to join her in exploring the past, aided by the dead woman’s clothing and diary. Tess must learn to trust herself and her abilities — to grow a business, plus untangle a haunting mystery that complicates the possibility of new love.
Ocean in Winter by Elizabeth de Veer (Blackstone Publishing)
The lives of the three Emery sisters were changed forever when Alex, eleven at the time, found their mother drowned in the bathtub of their home. After their mother’s suicide, the girls’ father shut down emotionally, leaving Alex responsible for caring for Colleen, then eight, and little Riley, just four.
Now the girls are grown and navigating different directions. Alex, a nurse, has been traveling in India and grieving her struggle to have a child; Colleen is the devoted mother of preteens in denial that her marriage is ending; and Riley has been leading what her sisters imagine to be the dream life of a successful model in New York City. Decades may have passed, but the unresolved trauma of their mother’s death still looms over them, creating distance between the sisters.
Alex leaves India to come home to Massachusetts to deal with an old house that was left to her by a stranger, but the house turns out to be haunted. One March night, a storm rages. The storm has knocked the power out, so Alex sits alone in the dark, only to be greeted by an unexpected knock at the door. When Alex opens it, her beautiful younger sister stands before her. Riley has long been estranged from their family, prompting Colleen to hire the private investigator from whom they’d been awaiting news.
Comforted by her unexpected presence, Alex holds back her nagging questions: How had Riley found her? Wouldn’t the dirt roads have been impassable in the storm? Why did Riley insist on disappearing back into the night? After her mysterious visitation, Alex and Colleen are determined to reconcile with Riley and to face their painful past, but the closer they come to finding their missing sister, the more they fear they’ll only be left with Riley’s secrets.
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